KOTA KINABALU

Driving into Kota Kinabalu two things struck us most, the silence... no car horns, and the greenery.
Even outside the airport the potted plants and roadside bushes looked aggresively healthy, vines and fan shaped ferns sprouted out the joints of trees.
KK is a small city, very long but only a few blocks deep before giving way to riotous green forested hills. We had a great few days planning onward tickets, reservations and the like and enjoyed the good eateries. Stayed in a chinese hotel over a packed cafe or kedai, called Ang's.
After traveling with only one pair of pants and one pair of shorts figured i'd better stock up on a waterproof... Green binbag looking poncho and a spare pair of trousers..which I got altered in a no fuss fashion at Pretty Good Tailors.
It was great to be in the multicultural air of Malaysia and enjoyed curries served on bannana leaves, noodle soups and fish n chips.

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KINABALU PARK HEAD QUARTERS

Off to Kinabalu park headquarters, three hours on the bus and 1,300 meters above sea level we suddenly went from tropics in a cold misty spring in wales.
Couldn't see our planned challenge, Mt Kinabalu as all was wrapped in mist and low clouds but had scheduled in a couple of days hiking the rainforest trails around Park HQ. These trails turned out to be an adventure in themselves, just a hundred meters along the trail and you felt the presence of being surrounded by primary forest slowly trudging along slender trails and ducking and diving roots, vines and craning our necks to look up at the huge trees, the vaulted canopy anywhere from twenty meters above. Although there was no wildlife to come across there were enough creepycrawlies to keep you on your toes. Trilobyte Beatles, stick insects the odd snake and the ever present mosquitoes.
On the second day we tried a longer hike and found oursleves lost between the interconnecting trails on our crappy photocopied map, a little line intarscting a harmless grey wiggle indicating a stream turned out to be vertical descent on rotting planks to be faced with a white waterfall and inpassable broiling river.
No worries, all paths are marked (except the ones that aren't) and all trails eventually take you out (except the ones that take you back in)... . anyhow, after our two hour jaunt turned into a five hour epic you got a sense of perspective... if thats the Bornean equivalent of a picnic stroll whats it like 'out in the woods'.

THE CLIMB
To climb Mt Kinabalu takes two days, day one you climb up two thousand meters in elevation over a six KM trail then rest at the summit base camp, Laban Rata.
Then you set off again at 3 am for the final and hardest bit, the last 1,000 meters in elvation over a two and a half KM trail. The summit is 4,100 meters above sea level... the highest mountain in Asia between the Himalayas and Papua New Guinea.
The night before we set off to climb Mt Kinabalu all the reports coming back from the base camp weren't great. Met exhausted looking climbers who had to turn back at Laban Rata, it'd been raining continually for two days with up to 120 km winds, some had just sat waiting for a gap in the weather with no luck.
So no one got to the summit? Not quite, met a lad from Birmingham who got there with an Australian he met. Said they got up at 2 am and found his guide drinking beer and mumbling 'no way mate' so they both went and did it themselves, "There's guide ropes all the way up to the summit, got a bit hardcore at times,it was raining sideways. Great though, you'll have no problems. Take a lot of chocolate with you."
Our guide, Rowdi, was from the local town, a Dusun, he was a young guy, the strong silent type. Throughout our two days together he hardly said a word except "Go slowly. Slow but not slow like a snake. That's a pitcher plant. It's five more kilometers... It's four more kilometers..it's three... "

We liked Rowdi, he did the whole climb in jeans, sweatshirt and pumps, never broke a sweat and only carried a bumbag. At his most talkative, the first hundred meters, he told us he'd been guiding people up the mountain for four years, three times a week !!... a strole in the park then.

The first three kilometers are just endless, steep up hill steps and we realised quickly that we were in for a slog. The jungle around us was beautiful and in the cloads and mist of morning the view was a looming mass og giant silhouetted trees. After that the path becomes more rocky, small irregular boulders made the trail that became steeper, the tress got small and soon we were walking through a stunted rhododendron forest and what looked like giant twisting Bonzai trees.
You could really feel the wind up there and imagined if the clouds dispersed there'd be great views.
This landscape took us up to Laban Rata, you could feel the air thinning around you (or was that just my lungs giving up). Six kilometers in five hours, a stirling performance, and crashed into the lodge to gulp down three consecutive cups of hot sweet tea like it was water.

TO THE SUMMIT
After little sleep but lots of food, tea and chocolate we were ready to carry on at 3 am. Laban Rata was buzing with people ready Afor the nod from guides. It hadn't rained all night and the wind wasn't too bad. Sure enough though it had started to pelt down around two thirty and alot of people were having second thoughts, the problem being, some explained, that the guides wouldn't take anyone onto the near summit plateau, a giant bowl of granite rock, for fear of you getting washed off the mountain... a reasonable concern for sure so we waited a bit. To be honest I was a bit envious of the other climbers gear... most seemed decked out in sensible foul weather gear, fleeces and breathable Gortex from head to foot while I was making do with wearing all my clothes at the same time, five T-shirts, both pairs of pants and a sagging windbreaker I'd hired from the Lodge. There was also the poncho/binbag thing I'd bought in KK which was supposed to keep me dry.

When I looked at Aya she was wearing Gortex from head to foot too which I'd helped and persuaded her to buy back in Tokyo only to a have a fit of financial panic myself and forgo the expense.
That wasn't the main concern though, we needed hats and gloves for the vertical bits when you need to pull yourself up the ropes and had to fork out for these cheese cloth mitten things that got drenched through with icy water the moment you started to climb..and the hats... horrible balaclava things that would only fit over my head if I wanted to make do without blood circulating to my brain... all nicely topped off with a fluffy bobble.
Still this was no fashion contest and I couldn't imagine ever needing it again in South EastAsia.

Groups started to set off despite the rain, and after a bit we persuaded a slightly reluctant Rowdi to give it a try. The next couple of kilometers were the longest in my life, in the dark and rain we worked our way up steep rocky slopes and had to pull ourselves up and over rock faces using the ropes.
It was kind off like reverse absailing having to lean back, brace your legs wide apart and pull/walk your way up.
After what seemed like hours we'd covered this single kilometer of trail and took a rest in the final shelter just below the Summit plateau.
It was small and seemed packed with people undecided to stay, go on or turn back. The rain was still coming down and the ever informative Rowdi simply said "Rest. Eat chocolate." before sitting in the corner, putting his head down and not moving for the next twenty minutes.
It was a strange twenty minutes standing in a tiny space crammed with climbers, mostly silent, cold and mumbling a bit. There was a couple stretched out under some emergency thermal blanket thing and we were thinking of joining them.
Standing around made us colder by the minute. My windbraker had soaked in the water like a treat and I felt like I had wrapped myself in a drenched blanket and then put on a bin bag.
Some guide asked us who we were with and we pointed at Rowdi in the corner (sleeping? hung over? bored? praying to the gods?), he informed us promptly that he was taking his group back down and the only thing I could think of saying was "Oh,"
In no time we were freezing so asked Rowdi to make a move he just said "Come on then. One thousand seven hundred and fifty meters." and strolled ahead. Over the next kilometer a few things happened all at once, light came, the dawn broke and we could see through a break in the cloads a brief view on golden sunlight the the valley floor impossibly far below, the rain stopped and the wind picked up, and also that we couldn't breath normally.
We were reduced to stopping for breath every ten steps, then eight, then five.
We shuffled along the granite floor and I remember thinking that this should have been the easiest part by far... just a walk up the slight slope of the basin, no steps, boulders or ropes.
After an hour we realised we were half way from the hut to the summit and was fighting off this urge to be sick.
I didn't mention it to Aya as i thought if I said it i'd throw up.
Then she said it and I thought "Christ were both gonna chunder on the roof of South East Asia." After another hour we reached the back of the basin and could see Lowes Peak, the summit named after the first european to embark on this mad adventure.

Lowes Peak is a bit of a kick in teeth, after getting into a four step shuffle then rest routine across the plateau you faced with a final sharp ascent, climbing over boulders and rocks to reach your goal. And this we did, in a trance like oxygen starved state.
The very summit is a tiny plinth, wide enough for two bums and a look across the heavens, way above the cloads that morning without rain or mist to spoil the view... just the wind trying to push you off. We sat there for a while... you can't really say just admiring the view as your way up above the clouds, watching them form and dissolve at high speed at your feet, whole blankets of white pouring over the outer edges and rocky peaks of the summit then breaking into whispy strands flying past.
Aya's expression had gone beyond tiredness or pain to some weird mask like look of utter exhaustion and I was thinking I was glad I couldn't see what I looked like.
Taking cameras out of bags involved moving muscles and touching freezing metal, far too much effort so we just sat there and watch it all.
Rowdi strolled up after us, he'd now donned a bin bag too and just nodded smiled and lit a cigarette. First smoke of the day at 4,100 meters... still looking like we were all taking a pleasant stroll through the woods.

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SEPILOK, July 2004

After we'd decended Mt. Kinabalu we needed three days just to recover the use of our legs.
We spent two of them at Poring hotsrings, an outdoors bathing area built by the Japanese during WWII, then caught a bus on to Sandakan.
The trip out there took us out of the Kinabalu National Park area and across Sabah through an endless landscape of palm plantations. As we dozed on the bus you'd look out and see neat rows of palm trees stretching out to the horizon and hours later the same monotonous landscape raced past the window. After the mass logging of the eighties an incredible 80% of the country had been deforested and later this ruined landscape had been converted to palm production for export.
We jumped off just outside Sandakan to make our trip to Sepiloc, home of the Sepiloc Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. As more land was cleared Orang Utans would be orphaned as farmers shot any wildlife occupying the forests they planned to fell. Recently, at the eleventh hour, they've been required by law to report any Orang Utans to this center for relocation. All the abandond orphans have no idea how to survive in the forest without the close bond and guidance of their mothers and the idea of the center is to save and then look after them, gradually teaching survival skills and reintroducing them to the forest reserves.

We based ourselves with a Chinese Malay family homestay, with Robert and Annie Chong. This turned out to be a stroke of real luck as Robert's vast knowledge and enthusiasm for wildlife preservation and his skills as a guide made our stay the highlight of our trip so far. We'd sit in their open air living room chatting the usual travel stuff and he'd enlighten us to all the issues of environmental protection, disappearing wildlife habitats and the involvement of local and national politics, occasionally punctuating his speech to whacking the dog at his feet with a fly-swatter.
Annie and Robert had an infectiously positive attitude and energy, making us feel immediately at home. In fact we asked to look after their house the first night we arrived as they'd made plans to go to a house warming party.

SEPILOC ORANG UTAN REHABILITAION CENTER
During the week we stayed we visited the Orang Utan center and made some of the hikes and walks around there. The highlight for all the visitors is the feeding platform. Twice a day the staff lay out bananas on a platform on the edge of the forest for the Orang Utans to swing over to for an easy supplimentary snack to whatever they'd found for themselves. Usually it's younger adolescents who visit as they're still nervous about the forest and learning the skills to be self sufficient.
We learned later that the platform is actually their first exposure to being reintroduced to the wild.
Once an orphan is taken into captivity they quickly become wholly dependent on their human carers. An orang utan mother cares for only one baby for around six years. If the babies are orphaned it takes years of effort and gradual exposure to get them back into the wild. Even climbing and swinging on ropes needs to be taught as they'd much rather just cling to each other in a hopeless bundle. Their first exposure to the platform in the forest is nothing less than terrifying as they sit huddled in a group looking up at the humming canopy wondering what it's all about.
With gradual exposure they graduate to being left for a whole day, then a night and hopefully in time they'll venture out into the forest only to return for feeding time and finally, hopefully, they'll hardly bother or need to venture back at all.
Feeding time at the platform is a bit of a circus, with hoards of visitors like us snapping away. Of course the Macaques come out in force for the free eats, often snatching the bananas straight out of the young Orang Utans hands, and fearlessly facing off the tourists, occasionally grabbing their hats, cameras and bags if they're not careful.

Following Roberts advice, we headed away from the platform and took a trail out into the forest to a birdwatching station then further on to a stream.
This was primary jungle and the scale and size of everything was amazing, the humidity stifling and the noise all encompassing. We couldn't get over the din of the circadas and insects cutting through the air, high metalic whinnings and undulating pulses of sci-fi sound effects, they created something like atonal melodies that sounded like the sound track to 'The Shining'. We were sweating so hard during our few hours in there that it became a good distraction from the heat.

On the way back from the rock pool we looked out for the signs of Orang Utans Robert had pointed out to us, the sound of snapping branches and falling leaves from the canopy that signalled an Orangutan up in the trees. After a few stops and a lot of peering up into the canopy we spotted one high up in the trees, building a nest for that night, a distant fuzzy ginger figure with it's back turned to us.

After stepping cautiously around a riotous group of young macaques and their parents giving us the evil eye we made it back to the feeding platform about an hour after the afternoon feeding session. The area was deserted but their were still three young Orang Utans hanging around the platform, uncertain of going back into the forest perhaps, swinging or just hanging limp by one hand casually staring about like this was the most comfortable position in the world. We stayed for half an hour or so enjoying the spectacle to oursleves and watching .Just a few yards away, they politely ignored us and we politely pretended to ignore them. After a while I picked up the courage to move closer and get some pictures before leaving them to it.
Close up they would turn and look you way with that famously sad and gentle look in their eyes as they held your gaze for a few seconds.

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Not everything in Sabah is organised, convenient and sanitised for tourism, thank god.
Large stretches of national parks are simply wild and very difficult to get out to and that was the main reason we'd come here. We wanted to visit the primary rainforest around the Kinabatangan River, home to thousands of bird species, Proboscis monkeys, Red and Silver -Leaf Langurs, Bearded Pigs, Orang Utans and Bornean Pigmy Elephants....just to name a few of it's bigger inhabitants.
To get there we ran into the issue of Eco-Tourism. Or more apt for us cash strapped independent travellers, money vs. Eco-Tourism.
Robert had given us a set quote for a two days on the River and we were balking at the expense. There was a cheaper option in town, Uncle Tan's Jungle Camp. Cheap and cheerful, very popular with most backpackers coming to the area but their itinerary included Volley Ball and set piece tours on a small stretch of the river. If you weren't lucky enough to catch a sighting the first time they woundn't be hanging around for the action to start. Also we couldn't work out why the hell you'd go all the way to the Kinabatangan for a game of Volleyball, sounded like padding.

The issue of eco-tourism has a simple logic, you're getting to go places where people can't normally get to, where the impact of tourism is minimal and where the wildlife is left as it is undisturbed. The prices are high because the costs are high and they have to be unless you want to have hotels, bars and tour buses in which case it's no longer the place it was. Still, it pisses you off to think that only monied people can offord the experience, especially at Danum Park in the east by far the largest and reportedly the most spectacular. Owned by logging concesion companies and costing 200 dollars a day plus to visit, it attracts only rarified clientele.
There was a big plus slide for us however. Robert was obviously a man who knew his stuff, he'd been working as a guide for years, had done so for a BBC documentary team just recently and countless twitchy birdwatchers over the years. He also broke it down simply for us, it's about quality not quantity...a day on the Kinabatangan with a good guide's worth a week somewhere else. And we're glad to say he was right
.

The drive out to Sukau village on the River took most of the morning and we met up with our boat driver Karim. After relaxing and waiting out the hottest time of day we set off on the boat to catch the last three hours of daylight. Robert had pointed out time and again that there were no guarantees of seeing anything on the river. In fact he insisted that we don't jinx the trip by telling him, "I've gotta see a ground dwelling purple pheasant before I die"...the kind of requests he'd get from birdwatchers all the time, spending weeks looking for one bird only. We respected this, kept schtum about the Bornian Elephants and kept our fingers crossed.
After a short while we came across a group sat in their boats under the shade of a tree. Robert got to asking a few questions and said the group thought there was a large group of elephants in the trees on the far bank. Robert decided it'd be worth waiting a short while as this group was being led by "Elephant Boy". He laughed explaining that Elephant boy was the only person who could actually approach the wild elephants on land, actually walk up and touch them without getting stomped into the ground. His father was an elephant trainer on the Malay Penninsula and now Elephant Boy had been living in this area so long that a lot of the younger wild elephants had grown up recognising him. Apart from having a "way" with elephants he always wears the same clothes for recongition when taking out a tour group.
Robert couldn't stress enough how dangerous it is to approach a herd of wild elephants, if they charge you have to get out the way, but you can't ever run in the jungle without tripping up...and then they'll innocently crush you like an insect.

The boat alongside us held a big Italian guy in head to foot safari gear clutching a pair of expensive binoculars.
Despite dressing for the occasion he obviously wasn't having much luck, apparently they'd been waiting under the tree since 11 o'clock that morning.
After fifteen minutes of inaction Robert decided to push on. We travelled a couple of hundred meters up river and swerved around a bend. There, stood on the banks were two elephants!
I would've missed them completely, like a couple of dull grey boulders against the jungles edge with their backs turned to us. We gunned the engine over towards the bank but instead of going directly we drifted past slowly at a distance. The elephants weren't too happy ay our appearance and crashed back into the protection of the long grass that fringed the river and forest. Karim took the boat on a wide u-turn out in the middle of the river in clear view of the young males and waited. Robert explained that we needed to show ourselves for them to decide whether we were worth worrying about or not. Looking through his field glasses he said they were young males, small tusks and were giving us the eye through the long grass. We couldn't see a thing and just prayed they'd reappear so we could get a better look.
Soon enough, as we drifted back towards their bank of the river, they did. Plunging into the river spraying water everywhere, Robert explained that they were locking tusks, and playing a bit aggressively in the shallow banks of the river but we no longer needed to take his word for it.
As the elephants grew to accept our presence we could simply drift closer and closer. We actually got to within meters of these huge animals bathing and splashing about in the water. Our little boat was bobbing up and down in the wake of ripples coming off them as we sat alongside only a few meters away. I immediately knew what Robert meant about quality. It wouldn't matter if you were in this situation for five minutes or an hour, just to be that close to wild elphants in their natural habitat was incredible.

Further along the river bank we heard the sound of crashing, young trees and old branches giving way to an oncoming herd trumpeting as they headed towards the river for their evening bath. We headed further out into the river and watched this large group emerging from the jungle.
Elephants by nature are said to be shy and this group, though large and with a mix of older matriarchs and young, prefered to stay partially hidden in the long grass at the rivers edge. By this point Karim kept laughing and giving us the thumbs up, "You're lucky, so luck. So many elephants in one day. In the water with elephants!" We had to agree and all sat on board grinning like idiots.
After a while we moved on as Robert had spotted some new visitors further upstream.

By this point I becoming increasingly amazed by his ability to spot the action. A few dark shapes and flanks on a distant ledge turned out to be Bearded Pigs. As we set the boat pointing directly to shore and gradually drifted forward Karim became even more excited. I dumbly thought "Bearded pigs? can't be as exciting as Elephants." But apparently spotting them in the wild is. They are short sighted and depend on smell to detect intruders, Robert had brought us in down wind of them and we glided only meters away, sitting stock still watching them forage and grunt along the rivers edge. They nervously looked our way a few times trying to decide if we were a floating log or not then carried on.
The sun was getting low and it was time to search for the Proboscis and Orang Utans settling in for the night. We drifted down a tributary off the main river peering overhead into the branches. Even at such a slow glide we were soon right at the edge of the forest. You could here childrens voices coming from a nearby planteers house and Robert pointed us to the ever encrouching `edge` of the primary forest. We`d seen endless miles of plantation all over Sabah but the destructiveness of it really hits home when it comes at you from nowhere and you see the edge. The contrast between vaulted rainforest canopy and empty plantation land under a big sky couldn`t be stronger, the loss and total destruction of habitat more total. This was only fifty meters from the main river, a mere minutes boat ride from where the Bornean Elephants were bathing and, as we turned back towards the Kinabatangan, about a dozen meters from two Troupes of Proboscis monkeys noisily settling in for the night.

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